Eating more rice is the best way to avoid weight gain

Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 17:53

"Healthy" kiosks in schools, higher taxes on sugary drinks, warnings on "junk food" packaging, new drugs to reduce appetite … This week, meeting in Scotland, the most Leading global experts in obesity have evaluated these many other measures as alternatives to stopping the sharp rise of this disease, especially in the western world. The most striking recipe, however, came from the East. It was brought by a Japanese researcher and it seemed simple enough: to improve, he said, we need to eat more rice. And he justified it by a battery of statistics that forced him to take it seriously.

Professor Tomoko Imai, of the Department of Nutrition of Doshisha Women's College of Kyoto, as well as colleagues from Nagoya University and two other local research centers, put on the shoulder a work consisting of an exhaustive comparison of obese population rates and quantities of rice consumed per capita in 136 countries in the world with more than one million inhabitants.

After this observation, a very clear pattern has been discovered: almost without exception, the countries where the population consumes more rice have a significantly lower proportion of overweight people compared to countries where this cereal eats less or has virtually no presence in developing countries. Table. "A significant relationship was found, rice consumption was inversely proportional to obesity," was the conclusion.

Of course, high or low rice consumption is not the only thing that defines people who reach an unhealthy weight. Consequently, these researchers have also taken into account in the statistical calculation the influence of a number of factors related to the lifestyle and socio-economic situation of each country, including the total energy consumption in the country. diet, level of education, number of smokers, product per capita, health expenditure and percentage of the population over 65 years old. And even with this adjustment, they explained, the relationship remained unchanged: the higher the rice intake, the less obese.

"The observed relationships suggest that the rate of obesity is low in countries where rice is the staple, so a Japanese or Asian rice diet can help prevent obesity." said Imai. to the surprise of the participants at the 26th European Congress on Obesity, which has just completed in a Glasgow city in the spring still frozen.

"Given the growing levels of obesity in the world, it should be recommended to consume more rice in order to protect the population from obesity, even in Western countries," said a Japanese academic who led research, based on data from the United Nations. the United Nations, the World Bank and other specialized sources.

And he was even encouraged to estimate that, if rice consumption per person only increased by 50 grams per day (a quarter cup), the world could quickly have seven million less obese adults. Currently, there are 650 million and these levels have almost tripled since the 1970s, according to data from the World Health Organization.

The badysis conducted by the Japanese showed that total energy consumption, smoking rate, obesity rate, but also the percentage of the population over 65, the product per capita and the expenditures of health were significantly lower in the coming years. countries with high rice consumption, such as Bangladesh (top of the charts with 473 grams per person per day), Laos (443 g), Cambodia (438 g), Vietnam (398 g) and Africa 39, Indonesia (361 g).

This compares with countries with much lower rice consumption, such as France (15 g), the United Kingdom (19 g), the United States (19 g), Spain (22 g), Canada (24 g) or Australia (32 g). Argentina, with an average of 22.5 grams per day per capita, ranks 78th in the rankings.

This means that our country is a little below the center of the table, exceeding countries in the region such as Chile (22 g), Mexico and Paraguay (13 g), but with a much lower consumption than Uruguay (31 g). ), Bolivia (72 g), Colombia (73 g) and especially Brazil (92 g), Ecuador (122 g), Peru (128 g) and Cuba (153 g).

"Eating rice," said Imai, "seems to protect us from weight gain, and it's possible that the fiber, nutrients, and other components in the kernels increase the feeling of fullness or satiety and thus prevent It is also low in fat and produces a relatively low blood sugar after consuming it, which suppresses the secretion of insulin, although it is also proven that people who consume too much rice are more likely to develop metabolic syndrome and diabetes.In this way, the consumption of an appropriate amount of rice can prevent obesity. "

"This study consisted in isolating one of the ingredients – rice – which integrates a much broader food model, Asian or sometimes Japanese, for which we already had much evidence, produced mainly at the local level, about its badociation. with health and even with greater longevity, "said Monica Katz, president of the Argentine Nutrition Society.

"The important thing in these cases," Katz emphasized, "is to avoid believing that the possible effects on health or disease could be produced by a single food of this type, and not we, the Argentines, should eat more rice alone.The reading would be that, if we followed the pattern of the Japanese diet, we would surely now have quite different rates of obesity. "

Source: https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/comer-arroz-consejo-investigadores-japoneses-frenar-obesidad-occidente_0_k_0M33cyH.html

->

<! –

->